Sorry if this has been discussed, tenemant, huge Bill!!!

Lewsy123

Hello

I am wondering if anyone can help.

I live in a 2 bedroom tenement and obviously we had quite a cold winter. however I am a little dubious if my meter is correct.

the breakdown of my bill shows that from 4march til 15April I used £379 of gas alone. £280 the month before and about the same the month before.

I think this seems excessive but I want to know if thats average consumption. During the summer months from may til now we have only used £121 for 3 months, obviously as the heating has been turned off.

Is it possible there is a problem with our meter, or if our radiotors arent working to the best of theire ability?

the heating was on most of the time during these months, due to terrible frost and the house would have been frozen if we had turned it off. there are only 2 people in the house, and the shower and over are electric. on the central heating an hob are gas.

any help would be great x

Premier_2

Check you are being billed based on your actual type of gas meter (and of course that the bills are based on actual not estimated meter readings)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/consumer_advice/latest_meters_pic.shtml

macman

How do you know what your monthly consumption is from the quarterly bill? Unless you have kept your own readings? It's unlikely that your meter has been read twice in 1 quarter, unless you have submitted your own readings.
What is your actual unit consumption (opening and closing readings) and are these actual, customer or estimated?

dogshome

Hi Lewsy123 - Your post is a bit short on detail to get answers, but from your figures you are spending roughly £40 a month on gas in Summer and £280 a month in Winter, which equates to around £1900 a year - A huge amount for a flat.

As Premier has posted, there is a chance that you have a Metric Meter, but are being billed on the basis of it being an Imperial model. The calculations on the Watchdog web-site to check this can be rather daunting, but there is another method to give a quick YES or NO answer

1 Check your meter's face plate, on it will be either M3 for a metric model, or Ft3 for Imperial
2 Look at a bill and divide the Kwh charged by the meter units used - If the answer is around 11.2 you are being charged for gas thro' a metric meter - If the answer is around 31.5 you are being charged on the basis of an Imperial meter

If you find the meters face plate and billing don't match, get onto your supplier immediately.
If Imperial meter charges are being applied to a Metric meter, the £1900 annual spend above should only be around £680

WendyH_2

Lewsy123 FYI I stay in a one-bed tenement in Glasgow and my gas and electric together work out at £63 per month by direct debit. Electric shower, gas hob and oven, top floor so not so great on the insulation side of things but ceilings a tad lower than 1st or 2nd floor ones at about 9.5ft. When changing supplier I did a LOT of price comparisons and analysis of my usage and £750 was about standard. That was last summer.

And Macman.... If you get your supply from Scottish Power they never stop reading the meter! Twice in 3 weeks was my record but currently on my fifth reading this year!! Do they not trust me or something? Terrible customer service anyway so I'm leaving once my fixed rate ends.